ORP Continues To Fundraise Off Fake FitzGerald Scandal

For months the Ohio Republican Party has been trying to stir up fake outrage over a $1000 campaign contribution Ed FitzGerald received in April and returned in July.

Yesterday, realizing absolutely no one cared about their non-existent scandal, and likely realizing that they were going to have their complaint dismissed for a second time, the Ohio Republican Party pulled the complaint from the election commission.

Strangely, the very next day, I received a fundraising email from ORP Communications Director Chris Schrimpf claiming Ed FitzGerald was still “remaining silent about an illegal donation he received from one of his appointees.”

Let it go, Schrimpfy. You gave it the old college try, but your faux fury fell flat.

You want a REAL fundraising scandal?

How about looking into Josh Mandel, John Kasich, David Yost and John Husted – all of whom received thousands in donations from Ben Suarez – a guy who was recently indicted for breaking campaign finance laws.

The world found out about Suarez’s fishy campaign donations two years ago in a Toledo Blade article – but Ohio’s Republicans waited until last month to give back the cash.

Kasich received $22,000. Mandel received $100,000 to his Senate campaign, which he returned 10 months after finding out about the scandal, and another $13,800 to his Treasurer’s campaign, of which he returned half last month.

All this after Mandel’s senate campaign fundraiser wrote a letter, signed by Mandel, threatening to sue the State of California if they didn’t stop trying to prosecute Suarez for selling nutritional supplements containing lead!

It took Republicans two years to return tens of thousands of dollars they knew were tainted. FitzGerald gave back $1,000 as soon as he realized there might be a problem.

There IS a scandal here, my friends. But it’s not the one Chris Schripf is trying to sell you.